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Druids as tanks
beta.}} Shapeshift into dire bear form, increasing melee attack power by 240, armor contribution from items by 370%, and Stamina by 25%. Also protects the caster from Polymorph effects and allows the use of various bear abilities. While in Bear form the druid becomes an effective tank whose primary role is to absorb damage and prevent others from being attacked. The Bear Form The druid's Bear Form is obtained at level 10 through a series of quests. That form will be later replaced at level 40 by Dire Bear Form. When a druid shapeshifts into a bear the following will happen: * The druid is allowed to use various bear abilities like Maul, Swipe and Growl. * The druid's mana bar will be replaced by a rage bar. * The druid's stamina is increased by 25%. * The druid gains 370% more armor from every leather item they have equipped. * The druid's bear abilities will cause extra threat. Advantages of a druid tank * The Survival of the Fittest talent allows druids to become immune to critical hits at level 80 without the need of additional Defense or Resilience from gear. * Although this is not an advantage nor a disadvantage, the bear druid is different from the other 3 tanking classes when it comes to stats. Generally a bear tank will have more hit points, a higher dodge chance and slightly more armor than other tanks, but these extra stats are there to compensate for the fact that a druid cannot parry or wear a shield. * Feral Charge allows the druid to quickly close in on the enemy at almost no cost. This ability comes in handy in many situations allowing the druid to instantly re-engage a mob after getting knocked back or when picking up a loose mob (even though Growl can take care of that too now). * Druids are immune to Polymorph and Humanoid Mind Control effects but these are extremely situational. * Bear abilities (i.e. Maul,Mangle) scale very well with gear. * Bears can be disarmed, although they only suffer the loss of the stats from the weapon whereas another tank could temporarily lose their ability to use abilities that require a weapon to perform. * A druid using Swipe was not too long ago able to hit only 3 targets, thus greatly limiting the druid's ability to AoE tank. But with the 3 target limit lifted Druids are finally allowed to AoE tank any number of mobs. Disadvantages of a druid tank * One very important difference between Swipe and other AOE Tanking abilities is that most other AOE tank abilities are Point Blank Area of Effect while Swipe is a forward effect only. The disadvantage is that you must keep all mobs you are tanking in front of you and must always have your target within melee range. This can make Swipe a little tricky to use at times and can even lead to a wipe. * One of the most pressing disadvantages of bear tanks is their very limited last resort options. However the latest changes have made this less of an issue. For example Frenzied Regeneration with the Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration will now heal you for 30% of your maximum health (without counting critical heals) and provide 20% extra healing. Bears now also have the Survival Instincts ability which grants them 30% of their maximum health, they can also use Barkskin and they can even drink a healing potion without having to shift to caster form. And let's not forget the handy trinkets like the Valor Medal of the First War. * While in bear-form, druids have few abilities to directly mitigate magic damage, but will have to rely on their extra health and/or Barkskin to carry them through a magical attack. Threat Generation Pulling *First and foremost, druids are a hybrid class and are not limited to what bear form can do, the use of the caster form spells are an excellent choice for establishing initial threat. The use of damage spells helps in the establishment of threat on a single mob, and the use of heal over time spells helps establish threat on an entire group. It also gives your healer some downtime where she or he will not need to generate threat by healing. *In Bear form, mobs can be safely pulled from the maximum range of Fearie Fire (Feral), which now does spell damage. If this is the method of choice to pull a group of mobs, Demoralizing Roar is a good next move as it will get the attention of the whole group as they run up to you, but beware it's area of effect, it will agro neutral mobs if present. *In some situations, where the pack of mobs you are about to pull contains both casters and melee and there is no way to take advantage of Line of Sight it is often better to use Feral Charge and start swiping right away. Although this is not usually a issue, make sure not to pull nearby groups by getting to close to them. Maintaining threat *Against single targets and bosses; Maul, Lacerate and Mangle should be used to maximum effectiveness, Fearie Fire (Feral) should also be used as often as possible. Swipe is a secondary attack and should only be used when Mangle is on cooldown. If, and only if, the mob or boss doesn't summon reinforcements or fear, Berserk can be used to increase damage output and therefore increase threat generation. A feral druid can easily equal or even surpass a warrior in threat generation, so be careful if offtanking, you may pull threat from the main tank. *Against multiple targets, the use of Swipe is highly recommended. Also of great use is the Glyph of Maul, which allows your Maul attack to hit two targets instead of one, this will help boost your overall damage output and help to keep agro on more than one mob. The effect of the glyph is not under your control and there is no way of telling which target it will hit. Berserk can also be used in the same way, hitting 3 targets for a large burst of damage, it has the same drawback as the Glyph of Maul. Tanking-related talents Both the Feral Combat and the first few tiers of the Restoration talent trees have talents which improve tanking ability in some way. Feral Combat * Tier 1 - (5/5) Ferocity - Reduces the rage cost of Maul, Swipe and Mangle by 5. * Tier 2 - (3/3) Feral Instinct - Increases Swipe damage by 30%. * Tier 2 - (3/3) Thick Hide - Increases armor contribution from leather items by 10%. * Tier 2 - (2/2) Savage Fury - Increases the damage caused by Mangle and Maul by 20%. * Tier 3 - (2/2) Feral Swiftness - Increases dodge chance in Bear Form by 4%. * Tier 3 - (1/1) Survival Instincts - Temporarily grants you 30% of your current health for 20 seconds. * Tier 3 - (3/3) Sharpened Claws - Increases Critical Strike chance by 6%. * Tier 4 - (3/3) Predatory Strikes - Increases your Attack Power by 150% of level (120 Attack Power at level 80) and by 20% of any attack power on your equipped weapon. * Tier 4 - (2/2) Primal Fury - You gain 5 rage points for every critical strike. * Tier 4 - (2/2) Primal Precision - Increases expertise by 10. * Tier 4 - (2/2) Shredding Attacks - Reduces the rage cost of your Lacerate by 2. * Tier 5 - (1/1) Feral Charge - Allows the druid to charge every 15 seconds. * Tier 5 - (2/2) Brutal Impact - Decreases the cooldown of your Bash by 30 seconds. * Tier 6 - (3/3) Natural Reaction - Increases dodge chance in Bear Form by 6% and returns 3 rage points every time you dodge. * Tier 6 - (5/5) Heart of the Wild - Stamina is increased by 20% in Bear Form. * Tier 6 - (3/3) Survival of the Fittest - Increases all stats by 6%. Also reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6% (thus granting critical hit immunity against level 80 bosses). In addition increases armor contribution from leather items by 66%. * Tier 7 - (1/1) Leader of the Pack - Increases the critical hit change by 5% for all ranged and melee within 45 yards of the Druid. * Tier 7 - (2/2) Improved Leader of the Pack - All characters benefitting from the Druid's Leader of the Pack heal 4% of their maximum health and gain 8% of their maximum mana, when they achieve a melee or ranged critical hit. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds per player. * Tier 7 - (3/3) Primal Tenacity - Reduces the duration of fear effects and the damage taken while stunned by 30%. * Tier 8 - (3/3) Protector of the Pack - Increases attack power by 6% and reduces all damage taken by 12%. * Tier 8 - (3/3) Infected_Wounds - Maul and Mangle cause an Infected Wound reducing attack speed by 10% and movement speed by 25%. Stacks up to 2 times. Lasts 12 seconds. * Tier 9 - (1/1) Mangle - Instant, high-damage ability that also increases damage from bleed effects (read Lacerate) for 12 seconds. * Tier 9 - (3/3) Improved_Mangle - Reduces the cooldown of Mangle by 1.5 seconds. * Tier 9 - (3/3) King of the Jungle - Increases your damage by 15% while using Enrage. * Tier 10 - (5/5) Rend and Tear - Increases the damage of your Maul attack on bleeding targets by 20%. * Tier 11 - (1/1) Berserk - Causes you Mangle to hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown. Also removes Fear. Restoration * Tier 1 - (5/5) Furor - The druid gains 10 Rage every time they switch into Bear Form. * Tier 2 - (5/5) Naturalist - Physical damage done is increased by 10%. * Tier 3 - (3/3) Intensity - The druid gains 10 additional rage instantly upon using Enrage. * Tier 3 - (1/1) Omen of Clarity - Each of the druid's damage/healing spells and auto attacks has a change of reducing the mana/energy/rage cost of the next ability by 100%. * Tier 3 - (2/2) Master Shapeshifter - Increases damage done by 4%. A common PvE tanking tanking build is 0/60/11. Various aspects of druid tanking Druids have tanked raid instances and boss encounters such as Nefarian in Blackwing Lair (despite the druid Class Call), Gruul in his lair, Magtheridon and/or his adds, and even more advanced raid bosses. A Druid in Bear form is a very viable tank. A Protection-specialized Warrior is often the preferred Main Tank for large raids but in many cases, a Feral Druid can do the job as well. Healing a druid tank Healers general consensus on healing a druid tank is commonly, "less spike damage, but more mana required". Druids tend to be hit more often, lacking the overall avoidance of other tanks, however their armor and stamina makes them more able to withstand very large physical damage attacks. On the other hand, when a short-duration large damage output period can be anticipated (i.e. a boss enraging) the druid's lack of a shield wall ability makes them harder to heal than a protection warrior. (Some of that may be outdated - suspect these comments date from pre-BC) Damage mitigation and damage avoidance Since druids cannot parry or block, druids must rely on their armor and dodge to mitigate and avoid damage. As such, they must specialize their gear differently from other tanking classes to play to their advantages. They rely on their much higher armor and dodge values to mitigate and avoid physical damage and their large hit point pool to provide a more comfortable buffer for their healers. Druids absorb powerful physical attacks quite well, so they do well on mobs and bosses that simply hit hard. Despite the fact that druids cannot parry or block, +Defense gear is still useful for them, increase their chance to dodge or to be missed as well as decreasing their chance to be critically hit. In The Burning Crusade, many +defense items have been made available to druids. Druids have the highest dodge per agility ratio of all playable characters, making agility an important avoidance booster for them. Agility has the added bonuses of increasing the chance of a critical strike (and thus aggro generation) and armor (mitigating more physical damage). Poor itemization and the lack of a overall damage reducer (like the 10% reduction that comes with Defensive Stance) also hurts druid tanks in resist fights where, once again they must rely on their increased health to survive long enough for their healers to pull them through. Keep in mind, however, that since many boss mobs' magical attacks are also AOEs, that the 15% chance to avoid that damage has comparable long-term mitigation to defensive stance. In particular, there is no post-60 crafted Nature resist or Frost resist leather available to help druids deal with Hydross the Unstable. A useful comparison of resilience and defense can be found in the article on the Combat rating system. Druid threat since 2.0.3 Starting in patch 2.0.3, Maul and Swipe no longer multiply their Threat by 1.75. Instead, Maul adds a flat amount of Threat to the base Threat caused by its damage (similar to the Warrior's Heroic Strike), and Swipe causes no additional Threat beyond that caused by the damage it inflicts. Bear Form still multiplies all Threat done by 1.3 (or by 1.45 with 3/3 Feral Instinct), however, including the additional Threat added to a Maul. Druid threat since 2.0.10 Starting in patch 2.0.10, Mangle multiplies its Threat by 1.5. Lacerate will land a small amount of damage, causing it to generate threat against bleed-immune creatures. It should be noted that lacerate's threat is now front-loaded, causing a change in how it is used. Before, lacerate's threat was generated through the bleed damage it caused; subsequent applications of lacerate would not do anything except increase the time left on the bleed back to 15 seconds. After the 2.0.10 change, each lacerate application causes a certain amount of threat (similar in use to Sunder Armor), while the threat from the bleed was emphasized less. Bear Form still multiplies all Threat done by 1.3 (or by 1.45 with 3/3 Feral Instinct). Note: depending upon talents, Maul, Swipe, and Mangle all cause significantly less damage because they no longer benefit from Savage Fury. Mangle no longer receives the base weapon damage multiplier of 130%. The additional crit damage from Predatory Instincts has been lowered from 15% to 10%. Snap aggro Druids have both a single target Taunt and an AOE Taunt. In times where a Druid must generate a lot of threat in a short amount of time, the use of Mangle and Maul together can establish a high amount of threat within the period of one attack. It should be noted that both of these abilities can crit, generating around double the threat. If the Bear Tank in question is a Feral Druid, they will most likely also have the talent of Faerie Fire(Feral) which requires no rage and assists in initial aggro establishment as well as allowing a druid to perform a ranged pull without having to shift out of Bear form and use a mana based ranged spell. Faerie Fire also has the benefit of not having any travel time, which allows for better control of when a mob will be pulled. Knockbacks Feral specialized Druids can almost immediately recover from many knockbacks using Feral Charge. Fear Some encounters, notably High King Maulgar, Nightbane, and various trash in Gruul's Lair and SSC, are made easier with fear-eliminating abilities. Groups with a Druid Main Tank in these encounters must either use Fear Ward or Tremor Totems, or be prepared for the main tank to temporarily lose aggro. Druids can also use fear-dispelling trinkets such as Insignia of the Alliance/Insignia of the Horde and the Glimmering Mithril Insignia, although these are all on high cooldowns. In addition, Druids may gain a passive 15% resistance to fear and stun mechanics through the Feral Combat talent Primal Tenacity. Edit: Due to the changes in patch 2.3, when feared, the tank should no longer lose aggro, though some mob fears are not actually classed as fear, like the warriors intimidating shout doesn't fear its target,but the people around, so can cause an aggro drop Disarm Druids are affected less by being disarmed than other classes as their attacks are made with claws and teeth. This means that often they may be affected by the "disarmed" debuff, but it doesn't change their attack power or prevent them from using their special attacks. This can be rather useful in encounters such as General Rajaxx. On the other hand, sometimes the "disarmed" debuff is enough to trigger an effect, as with the Ethereal Thief mobs in Karazhan. Emergency buttons Druid's have many more options for Emergency buttons than ever before since Wrath of the Lich King. Some options that they may have not used before because they removed druids from feral forms, now do not, so they're more viable Emergency buttons. *Frenzied Regeneration, which can restore 30% of a druids current maximum health, with . This ability is on a 3 minute cooldown. It should be noted the Frenzied Regeneration consumes a lot of rage, so a bear using it will be constrained to use their threat generating moves less, particularly maul. *Survival Instincts(added in Wrath) is a talent, which when activated, temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 seconds. *Barkskin(now usable in feral forms) can be used to reduce damage taken by 20% for its 12 second duration and is on a 1 minute cooldown. *Potions and Healthstones can (finally) be used in feral forms without the need for a "Bearpot" macro, that most druids were unwilling to use, because of the possibility of being 1-hit while in humanoid form. *There are various trinkets that can be used in emergencies, one example of which would be . *Lifeblood(Herbalism) can be used in feral forms and will provide you with 2000 health over 5 seconds, for those herbalist druids. *Nature's Swiftness and Healing Touch can be used in a dire situation, but most serious tanking druids won't have the required 24 points in the Restoration Tree to do so, and it is not recommended in anything more than a normal 5-man, as raid bosses would surly deal enough damage to kill you before you can return to Bear Form. Weapon enchants Even though druids could previously not make use of "Change on Hit" weapon enchants, this has been changed in Wrath of the Lich King making many of them viable for druids to use. Ironically the best bear tanking weapon enchant still remains the old +35 agility. Polymorphing bosses When a tank is polymorphed, any targets they held aggro on will run wild. Druids are generally immune to polymorph in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, Moonkin and Tree of Life forms, so they have an 'easy out' on those types of mobs/bosses. This comes in handy with encounters that Polymorph, such as: Jin'do the Hexxer, Talon King Ikiss and Blackwing Spellbinders in Blackwing Lair. Shapeshifted druids are not immune, however, to the Shade of Aran's Mass Polymorph ability, but that boss cannot be tanked, feral druids should be in cat form. See also * BC tanking equipment (druid) * Wrath tanking equipment (druid) External links * Druid Gear List * Bear Meatshield Guide * WoTLK Druid Tanking Gear List Category:Druids Druids as tanks